


Fruits of his loins

by Tabata



Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-29
Updated: 2020-03-29
Packaged: 2021-02-28 17:47:20
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,905
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23381161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tabata/pseuds/Tabata
Summary: Langley and Shannen with the teeny tiny baby twins.
Relationships: Original Male Character/Original Male Character
Kudos: 1
Collections: COWTverse & Polyverso





	Fruits of his loins

**Author's Note:**

> You knew this was going to happen. Langley, Shannen, babies. What else was I supposed to write?
> 
> Written for: Lande di Fandom's COW-T #10 (M1A)  
> prompt: COWTverse SAFE

Langley slams the door open and he marches in like he owns the place, his extreme enthusiasm making him the owner of anything he loves with enough passion – which is _everything_ because he doesn't love if it's not with intense, often unrequited, passion.

“Fruits of Shannen's loins,” Langley declares, his hands still on the doors' panels he vigorously pushed open to make his entrance, “Your fathers are here!”

The room they chose for the babies is lavishly too big, like any other room in the Summer Palace, and they could easily fit another five cradles in here without lacking space. It's fortunate that they are not planning to expand the family any time soon, or ever. The twins are a gift they weren't expecting and that caused a lot of grief before turning into a joy. You don't try to replicate something like that, you get content after having survived the first round.

Also, Celes enchanted Shannen's baby-making bits, so they're good.

There are two identical white cradles in the center of the room, exposed to the warm and salty breeze coming through the windows from the nearby sea. And next to those, looking towards the door with two identical befuddled expressions, there are two nannies who breathe a sigh of relief the moment Shannen's figure appears right behind the vampire.

“Greetings, lovely ladies,” Langley salutes the two women with a small bow. “We greatly appreciate the job you've done so far in keeping our babies safe and happy, but from now on your services won't be required anymore as we are here to care for our offspring.”

“But sir,” The nannie looks at him and then at Shannen, even more befuddled, “we've been instructed—“

“He has no idea what he's doing,” Shannen explains, summarily, “but the only chance we all have to get through this quickly and go back to our somewhat normal lives is to let him do whatever he wants to do, so he can see that it can't be done. Would you mind leaving us for a while?”

“But, my lord, the babies are very small,” the other woman says, hesitantly.

“And I'll make sure he won't eat them,” Shannen says.

“I'm a vampire, not a rabbit,” Langley points out, pouting. “Give me a little credit.”

“Do rabbits eat their young?” The first nanny asks appalled, a hand to her quite flourishing bosom.

Langley shrugs. “I don't know, they might,” he says dismissively as he gets closer to one of the cradles. “They have so many it must be easy to mistake one for a snack.”

The nanny looks at Shannen in horror and Shannen rolls his eyes. He hates when he's forced to speak more than twice in a row and this woman is really trying his patience. “He won't bite them, they are his children,” he says exasperated, pointing at Langley who, looming over a cradle, is now making all kinds of silly sounds. “He's not dangerous, he's just an idiot.”

“That is correct,” Langley confirms, without looking away from the baby, who's staring at him – or at the blurry shape his eyes are able to see, at least – with great curiosity.

The two women don't look very convinced, but Shannen's presence makes Langley's request official for them, and so they stand up, grab their things and leave the room to them. The moment they're gone, Shannen drops on one of the armchairs. “Are you happy now?”

“Don't act so irked,” Langley says. “You wanted to be in here as much I did.”  
“I've never said that,” Shannen frowns.

“That doesn't make it any less real.” Langley presses one of his long fingers gently down on the baby's tummy and the baby squirms and gurgles adorably. “Besides, we were given a task.”

“No, _you_ were given the task,” Shannen precises. “My task is to look after you.”

The throne room was unusually crowded this morning.

The whole extended family was present, some of them out of affection, but for the most part out of obligation. Lacros made it very clear that this wasn't an invitation but an official summoning. Not everybody responded to it with the solemnity he expected, but at least they were all there, which could be considered quite the miracle.

Manila sat on a chair on the left side of the room, her legs crossed and one of her small milky white feet dangling in a restless motion. The only sign that she had ever been pregnant is Calico on her lap. Vesper was standing right next to her and she looked like she had been somewhere else way more fun and she wanted to go back there. An understandable feeling, to be quite honest.

Lacros, the High Priest, stood a few feet from them and he was clearly the only one in the room who found acceptable – probably essential – to be there. His husband Laenton wore his usual resigned expression. He is a man who made a lot of compromises in his life and they were pretty much all around him.

The rest of the family – Metacomet, to name just one – were scattered behind Shannen and Langley who stood right in front of the throne. Shannen the image of boredom and Langley that of thinly disguised awkwardness.

It seemed a little too intense to be all there reunited for such a trivial thing, but Langley was so happy to have been included this time – even though that has been happening more and more every day lately – that he would have answered to Lacros' call even if the High Priest had wanted to have an official discussion on their stock of toilet paper.

What he had wanted, instead, was for Celes to make the official announcement that he was leaving for a couple of weeks on seer business – which is a nice way to say that he's going to travel from land to land to see if the reconstruction really took roots – and that, as their father, Shannen was going to take care of the twins with the help of Langley.

That is the closest official _I leave my children with their fathers_ Celes could give him right now and he's okay with that. He likes very much to be the little annoying gusset blocking Lacros' perfect mechanism. It's always funny to see him fretting over any minor technicality.

Langley looks up and smiles at Shannen as the baby's hand closes around his finger. “That is how it's going to be from now on, my precious fragment of heaven,” he says, serenely. 

Shannen frowns, but in a different way. At this point Langley have known him long enough to recognize the different nuances of his disapproval. “Now, who's the one acting irked? You know very well Celes doesn't care if you are one quarter vampire, all vampire or no vampire at all. He thinks very highly of you. For reasons that elude me, but he does.”

Langley laughs. “Oh, I know that. Don't worry, I'm not offended,” he reassures him, and he actually sounds sincere. “But this place has its rules, at least for now, and I have to play by them until Celes changes them. Really, it's easier for everybody. So whatever I'm appointed with, it has to be indirectly through you. And I'm okay with that, you are my favorite person to spend time with, after Cee.”

“This is ridiculous,” Shannen shakes his head, even if he agrees that it's way easier to get around Lacros' rules than try to force them. “You're going to raise these two. What are we supposed to do? Write you an official authorization to be the father of these children on a parchment sealed with wax?”

“Oh, I would love a copy of that,” Langley says, excitedly. “I will put it next to my authorization to have sex with both of you. I framed that one.”

Then, he bends over the cradle and picks the baby up, cuddling the little bundle against his chest.

“What are you doing?” Shannen asks when he sees Langley walking towards him. There's sheer panic in his eyes as he backs on the armchair, but the vampire ignores it completely. “Langley, no. I'll end up dropping him.”

“Nonsense,” Langley declares, placing the baby in Shannen's arms and forcing him to hold him. “You're too good looking to let babies drop. Your primary purpose in life is to be a hot daddy, so you better start practicing. You have the look already, but that's not enough. You have to hold a baby, for starters.”

“But I—“ Shannen begins, but he can't give him the baby back because Langley has already moved away and towards the other cradle.

“I don't have four arms anyway,” Langley goes on, bending on the second cradle and picking the other twin up. “So you will have to help me. Even though having four arms would be great.”

Shannen watches him in silence as Langley walks to the other armchair and sits down carefully, his body bending, almost wrapping around the tiny creature in his arms. The twin moves slightly and then sighs, settling against him. Langley's smile is so stupidly happy that Shannen doesn't even find the right words to offend him. 

“Have you done this before?” He asks, instead.

Langley answers him, but he seems unable to look away from the twin. “I don't have any illegitimate children if that's what you're asking. I've always been sterile. I don't know if it's because of the vampire genes or because I'm a crossbreed.” Langley turns up his nose. “Crossbreed, what an awful term, isn't it? But I suppose that's what I am.”

“As I've already said once today, you're an idiot,” Shannen cares to reiterate, “and at most you're mixed-race. You're not a donkey. But I wasn't asking that. You just seem to know how to handle newborns.”

“I don't, I'm just improvising,” Langley answers dreamily. He's so totally in love with the kids that he doesn't even have the time to find some convoluted way to speak as he usually does.

Shannen wonders if he should put the baby back in his cradle and leave Langley here, but then he doesn't because the twin in his arms is holding him by his shirt and Shannen doesn't feel like moving anymore, lest the kid gets upset. In fact, he won't move ever again.

When twenty minutes later Celes opens the door, he finds them both still on the armchairs, the twins peacefully sleeping on their chests – and Langley sleeping too.

“I didn't think you would still be here,” Celes blinks, confused. He can understand loving their children, but they are allowed to live their lives in between one cuddle and another.

Shannen nods towards the sleeping vampire, who's slowly slid on the side and he's now sitting askew; the twin in his arms mimicking his posture perfectly. If they didn't know better, they could go for a paternity test. “The idiot fell asleep.”

“And you were nailed to the armchair?” Celes hints with a smirk.

Shannen blushes and looks away. “I can't leave him alone without him doing something or opening his mouth and making trouble,” he mumbles. “I was doing damage control.”

“Of course,” Celes chuckles. “Well, I'm leaving in ten minutes, so I came to say goodbye.”

He was a little worried to go alone, leaving them behind, but it looks like they'll get by just fine.


End file.
